Victory in care fees fight

Campaigners today welcomed a major victory in the fight over who pays care home fees, but warned it would not open the floodgates for other families hoping to force local authorities to foot the bill.

Mike Pearce, the son of an Alzheimer's sufferer, has won compensation of more than £50,000 after he was forced to sell his mother's home to pay for care he believed should have been funded by the state.

Mrs Ruby Pearce was in a nursing home for six years before she died aged 84. Mr Pearce challenged the ruling that although his mother was totally incapacitated for much of that time, she did not require continuing NHS care. If she had, the local authority would have had to pay her fees.

It was in 2003, following the health service ombudsman's report criticising health authorities for restricting access to fully-funded NHS continuing care, that Mr Pearce asked for his mother to be assessed for fully-funded care. The primary care trust reviewed her needs in February 2004 and decided she was correctly assessed as being in the middle band of nursing care, and eligible only for £70 a week.

Mr Pearce, 60, who is a former Scotland Yard detective, did not agree, but was amazed by the system of assessments and appeal committees. He said: 'When I went to an appeal committee the whole process was a shambles. I had much more accurate information about my mother than they did.'

He took his fight to the local government ombudsman and the health service ombudsman, both of whom ruled in his favour against Torbay Primary Care Trust in Devon. The trust said today: 'We inherited this case when we were set up as a care trust and have been working carefully with Mr Pearce since then. As recommended by the Department of Health, we have also been reviewing so-called 'high band' funded nursing care cases to ensure that their continuing care eligibility has been correctly assessed.'

The Alzheimer's Society said the Pearce case had been judged on the basis of new guidelines published by the Department of Health although these have only recently completed a consultation process and have not been officially adopted.

'There is a lot of hope that the new framework will make a difference, but we still have a lot of concerns,' said the Alzheimer's Society. 'We don't think this case will open the floodgates. While it is good news for Mr Pearce and his family, it is not a precedent.'

The society added: 'Continuing care is a broken system. The national framework does not go far enough and if implemented will deliver more of the same. A national debate is the only solution.'

Mr Pearce, who lives in Upminster, Essex, said: 'No longer is it possible for primary care trusts to say a person has no needs just because they are stable. Fifty thousand pounds might sound a considerable amount, but will hardly compensate for the forced sale of my mum's house in 1999 and payment of care home fees against the value of the house in 2004.

'When you've lost somebody you are very close to and you've got to go through all this as well as grieving, you feel pretty disgusted.'